El-Rufai Holds Town Hall Meeting Over 2016 Budget

Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, on Saturday held a town hall meeting with stakeholders in the state to deliberate on the proposed 2016 Budget before its formal presentation to the State House of Assembly.

The total estimate of the budget is N166 billion, with a sum of N104 billion voted for capital expenditure, while N62 billion was earmarked for recurrent expenditure.

In his address titled ‘Putting the people first: Back to Budget Realism,’ the governor accused previous administrations in the state of reducing the yearly budget into a “fictographic art with scarcely any relationship to reality.”

“We have called this meeting today to present to you the broad principles informing the policy choices that are reflected in the draft 2016 budget. The budget is anchored on the commitments outlined in the Restoration Programme, the manifesto platform on which the Kaduna State APC campaigned.

“When we formally launched our election campaign, we made it clear that the APC believes in the capacity of our people to make the best choices for themselves if they are properly educated, given decent healthcare and jobs in a secure environment,” the governor said.

“Year after year, only the recurrent part of the budget attained perfect performance. Capital investments repeatedly suffered, sometimes reaching only 1% in some sectors or 17% performance overall. They had reduced budgeting into a fictographic art, with scarcely any relationship to reality. Huge annual budgets were approved without being implemented, leaving a legacy of abandoned projects.

“We knew we had to reorient the whole thrust of governance, replacing it with a culture that puts the people first. Democracy construes the people as the masters; we must obey their command to improve their lives.